


Status Update: I am not full of worms.

by armyofbees



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bickering, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Prompt Fill, Space Stations, Worms, i don't even know how to tag this they're just on a space station and there's worms, i wrote this for a tangerine and i wish i was kidding, they're emotionally stunted please help them, worms of unusual size
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15484980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armyofbees/pseuds/armyofbees
Summary: Sent to a space station with dubious structural integrity, vague instructions, and a supreme leader to disappoint? What could go wrong?Worms, is the answer. Lots of them.





	Status Update: I am not full of worms.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betwixtthemoon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=betwixtthemoon).



> One day, I was too lazy to stand up and get a tangerine for myself. I was sitting literally two feet away from the fridge and I just Could Not Be Bothered. So I told my evil, evil beta that if they got me a tangerine from the fridge, I'd write them anything they wanted. And yes, I said anything. I am a fool. The next day, they approached me with two criteria: the prompt "Status Update: I am not full of worms" and Kylux. Little did I know that I would be plunged into a worm-filled hell that lasted five months and spanned almost 7,000 words of absolute bullshit. Finally, I bring you the finished product. Enjoy.

The station is nothing compared to Starkiller, yet despite its abandoned state it’s still fairly impressive. Having been out of commission for years, there are no lights on, so it appears as an immense black void on the backdrop of Dathomir’s blood red surface and the empty vastness of space. Hux feels a mixture of pride and unease that makes his skin crawl.

The station itself is essentially a large ring with a massive central column that houses the bridge, various meeting rooms, offices, training facilities, and a hangar. The archive is on the far side of the upper wing, directly across the station from the bridge. It’s conveniently laid out so that all of their destinations are essentially in one big line. If they just keep walking forward, following the curve of the ring, they’ll get where they need to be. Hux feels confident in Kylo’s ability to do that much. He tells this to Kylo, who’s leaning against the doorframe of the cockpit, and gets a scowl in response.

“You only like me for my looks,” Kylo mutters, shuffling over to him and leaning on the back of his chair.

“Something like that,” Hux agrees. He gets a kiss on the cheek, then the neck, then another, this time with teeth, and then he swats Kylo away. “I still have to dock this, and we still have a mission.”  
Kylo snorts, pulling back to fold his arms over the chair back and rest his chin on them. “Do you _really_ think Snoke cares about this mission?”

Hux wrinkles his nose. “Okay, well, I don’t know how else to tell you we’re not having sex on an abandoned space station next to the angry murder planet.” He leans his head back to look at Kylo skeptically.

Kylo tries to fight a smile and ultimately loses, and then Hux kisses him for real. Just once, quickly, before pulling away and focusing back in on locating the hangar.

“Tease.”

“What did I just say?”

“You didn’t say anything about making out, though.”

“Now I am. None of that. Go put your stupid cape on.”

Kylo snorts and pushes off of the chair a little harder than is really necessary before retreating from the room.

The hangar entrance is on the planetward side of the station, so Hux brings the ship around while trying not to look too long at Dathomir’s scarlet surface. If he were Force-sensitive, he’s pretty sure he’d be thrilled to be here, or at least appreciative, but as it is, he’s mostly just uncomfortable. There’s something about the planet that sets him off — most likely the fact that it looks like it’s been drenched in blood. Hux pries his gaze away, brings the ship into the hangar, and initiates the landing sequence.

If the station looked eerie from the outside, the inside is simply haunting. The hangar is an immense, cavernous space, shadowed and lightless except for the red glow cast by the planet and the weak lights of Hux’s shuttle. Outside his little pool of light, Hux can barely make out the silhouette of a doorway, walls stretching up into the darkness on either side. He can’t see the ceiling or any other ships. He kind of wishes he had Kylo’s hand to hold or something stupid like that.

Once the ship has landed, Hux leaves the lights on and exits the cockpit. He has his datapad in hand, scanning over the map Snoke sent him of the layout of the station. He hadn’t been worried about finding their destination before, but now he’s a little less sure. This whole place is just so… creepy.

Kylo is standing at the top of the landing ramp, his ridiculous black cloak billowing with the steam rising up from the iced-over landing gear. As stupid as Hux thinks he looks… the steam frames him in an oddly majestic way. Completely objectively, he’s beautiful.

Then Kylo turns and flashes a smile, and the spell is broken. “How’s it looking out there?”

Hux blinks, glances away. “Dark. Dreary. I should put reflective tape on you so I don’t lose you in the shadows.”

“Oh, c’mon. You like the dark, brooding thing.”

“Honestly, you lost the ‘brooding’ in that phrase a long time ago.”

“Fucking rude.”

Hux rolls his eyes almost fondly, gaze flickering to the empty hangar over Kylo’s shoulder. There’s something… there. Something moving. Hux takes a few steps forward, squinting into the pitch black.

“Um. Hux?” asks Kylo, turning to follow his gaze.

“There’s…” Suddenly, out of the darkness comes barreling a winged creature that is  _ far  _ too big to be a bat. Hux squawks and ducks as it goes flying past his head, stopping just short of flat-out throwing himself on the ground. Kylo snickers as it lands on the wall behind them.

Hux takes a moment to decide just how he’ll threaten Kylo’s life, then straightens, brushing off his uniform. “Say anything about that, to  _ anyone, _ and I  _ will _ resolve our betting pool.”

Kylo isn’t looking at him though. His smile is small, forgotten on his lips as he stares at the far wall of the transport. Hux turns and looks, then snorts.

“What, don’t tell me you’re surprised that there are mynocks.”

Clinging to the wall is a large, brown, bat-like creature with a disc-shaped head and leathery brown wings. It would be horrifyingly grotesque if Hux hadn’t dealt with these things a million times over, not least because Snoke keeps sending him to abandoned outer rim locations on missions that they both know are arbitrary. The mynock must be younger; it’s not as big as others Hux has encountered — it would only come up to Kylo’s shoulder, while they generally grow to be a few inches taller than him.

Honestly, Hux feels a little silly now, but he feels a little more self-righteous seeing Kylo outright gawk at the thing.

Kylo finally looks away to meet Hux’s quizzical gaze, shaking his head. “No, sorry.” A pause, wherein he seems to collect himself. “You know, I’m amazed at how fast you can transition from terrified to all… holier-than-thou.”

Hux narrows his eyes. “The betting pool, Ren. They’ll all know.”

Kylo raises his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. But, to be fair, you think it’s as funny as I do.”

Hux shrugs, then gestures to the still-open landing ramp. “Shall we?”

“Are we not gonna like… chase it out with a broom?” Kylo glances between the mynock and Hux, eyebrow raised.

“We… need to leave the ramp down. I’m not sure what you think taking a broom to it will accomplish.” Hux starts down the ramp, not looking back to check that Kylo is following. He pauses for a moment in consideration, waving a gloved hand carelessly. “Further, I don’t know where you think I’m hiding a broom in here. There are literally two rooms and no closets.”

Kylo grumbles something under his breath that Hux ignores.

Stepping off of the ramp and onto the old, dull floor, Hux takes a moment to observe the space around him. The view from the shuttle carries throughout the rest of the hangar — the whole thing is dark and cavernous and Hux still can’t see the ceiling. Past the shuttle, there’s a silhouette of the hangar’s entrance, half-obscured by Dathomir’s surface. Past that, an expanse of stars. The system’s other planets are lost in clots of constellations, and Hux suddenly feels very, very alone.

Then Kylo brushes past him, checking him with a shoulder, and Hux remembers that he’s still got at least one person to piss him off.

He also feels really cold. A shiver runs down his spine as the stale, freezing air hits him. He crosses his arms and takes a moment to appreciate his greatcoat.

Hux does a couple catch steps to get ahead of Kylo, then leads the way towards the hangar’s exit, glancing down at the map every so often to reaffirm that, yes, they will in fact turn left once they get out of here. He doesn’t know why, but this place is just... off, and he has to keep reminding himself that he’s going the right way.

As they pass by the empty landing bays, Hux notes more — hundreds more — mynocks clinging to the walls and the ceilings, grouped in what appear to be colonies. They keep to the shadows and chirr as he and Kylo pass. One clump takes off when they get too close, flocking over their heads and quickly becoming obscured by the shadows on the far wall.

The hallway, when they reach it, is darker than the hangar, without the distant stars to brighten it. Beside Hux, Kylo clicks on a penlight, illuminating the wide corridor. Lightstrips run flush with the wall, dark and unused. An emergency lamp sits unlit across from them, where the wall meets the ceiling.

Hux takes a sharp left and Kylo follows, the penlight providing a wavering circle of visibility on the ground in front of them.

They pass by a viewport, the very edge of Dathomir looming beyond. The port casts a square of silver light onto the floor and far wall, the rest of the hallway dimly visible for a few feet before it peters into darkness again. They progress in silence. Hux can’t bring himself to speak. He feels like he needs to listen and watch and  _ not _ taunt the person holding their only light source, no matter how difficult that prospect may be.

A hundred or so steps down the corridor, and there’s another viewport, and then shadow. Again, again, concrete and repetitive, like everything in the Order.

Hux and Kylo are swathed in one of these patches of darkness when they hear a loud, grinding creak. They both freeze and Hux looks to Kylo, barely visible in the murky light. Kylo’s eyes are shadowed and almost too dark for Hux to make out, but when Kylo meets his eyes, he knows.

They stand, tense, staring at each other, and Hux begins counting in his head. He makes it to four before there’s another metallic groan, and then a thundering  _ crash, _ and Hux  _ feels _ it reverberate through his feet and legs.

“The bridge,” Kylo breathes, eyes still dark and intense and boring into Hux’s.

Hux nods once, and then they’re off. Kylo’s faster, and Hux is still wearing his greatcoat, and he finds himself lagging until Kylo grabs his hand — not his wrist, his brain points out for some reason — and yanks him along.

“Right!” Hux shouts as they near the bridge, and Kylo doesn’t acknowledge him. Hux stumbles, tries to stop, but Kylo keeps going, and Hux ends up being half-dragged along on the ground. “Right, Kylo, you idiot! On your right!”

Then Kylo slows, just enough for Hux to get his feet back under him and be pulled abruptly into the bridge.

Kylo lets go of his hand then and takes his shoulders. Hux meets Kylo’s eyes and there’s a moment of silent communication. Hux’s breathing slows considerably and they break apart.

A huge viewport stretches across the bridge’s far wall. Dathomir is fully visible, weak red light dousing the whole room in a ghostly glow. Beyond the crimson planet, its still redder star shines dark and ominous, barely visible beyond the planet’s crust. Directly in front of the viewport is an observation deck with desks and old, dead datascreens jutting off and running along the side walls. They end a few feet from the back wall, where Hux and Kylo stand. In the center of the bridge is a hexagonal space surrounded and lined by yet more datascreens, some cracked and all unlit. A raised platform protrudes from behind that space with a chair placed atop it, overlooking the whole bridge. A large datascreen takes up the wall behind the chair, though it appears hopelessly shattered.

With all that in mind, Hux takes the stairs leading down onto the floor. Kylo stays at the top of the stairs like some kind of sentinel, and though Hux would normally mock him for that, he’s actually a little grateful.

Hux tries the first screen he comes to. He twitches a few controls, finds something that looks like a power key, but it stays dark. An old connector cable runs from the controls down under the desk, where it should be plugged in to the wall. It is, but the cable appears frayed, sparking at intervals and slightly charred.

Glancing down the row, most of the cables are damaged, some even completely broken and hanging limp.

Hux sighs and stands, glancing to the datascreens behind him. Most are dark and useless but… his eye catches on one in particular, whose not-quite-black screen had previously been lost to Dathomir’s red glow. He tries the power button. The screen drags itself arduously to life and after a minute or two it manages a flickering but clear image of an error message. Hux takes a moment to just glare at it.

He clicks around for a few seconds, and after a bit of meddling another window pops open.  _ Error. _ Hux bites back another sigh and tries again. This time, the window that opens displays what appears to be a dead security feed and a diagram of the station. There are heat signatures on the bridge, where Hux and Kylo stand, and everything else looks relatively normal, except…

“Hey, Ren, come here,” Hux calls abstractedly, focus entirely taken up by the screen before him. Kylo’s footsteps echo in the heavy silence as he approaches and Hux flinches when a hand is laid on his shoulder.

Kylo mutters an apology and Hux refrains from shooting him glare. Instead, he raises a finger and points at the screen. Kylo is silent a moment, then he hums and says, “Space slugs.”

Hux blinks. “Sorry?”

“It’s gotta be giant space slugs,” Kylo says, suspiciously decisive.

Hux turns to him and narrows his eyes. “Shut up, you have less of an idea of what it is than I do.”

Kylo breaks into a smile, and Hux purses his lips, resisting the urge to kiss his stupid face. “Caught me. So what do you think it is?”

Hux turns back to the screen. “I’m not sure. Most likely whatever was causing those noises. Whatever it is, it’s certainly something to be avoided.”

“Right.” Kylo steps back and Hux turns to face him. They regard each other for a moment. In Dathomir’s blood-red light, Kylo looks divine, but… curiously out of place. It’s the same discord Hux always feels when he ignites his lightsaber — something seems off with the aurae. It turns his pale skin into a battlefield and darkens the scar running down the center. Hux wants to reach out and run his fingers along it, but he doesn’t. He reminds himself that he’s wearing gloves, anyway.

Kylo coughs gently and it breaks whatever trance  _ that _ was. Hux immediately looks away, gathering his thoughts before looking back to Kylo’s face. “We still need to get to the archives,” he says.

Kylo nods, but his eyes are too soft and he seems half-amused, half-concerned. “One of us should stay here to watch the feed.”

“I have a datapad,” Hux says, nodding to the small, dark tablet resting next to the datascreen. “I can transfer the thermal sensory system to it.”

Kylo considers. “No,” he says eventually. “You should stay here and see if you can get the surveillance feed up.”

“I should come with you,” Hux counters. “Splitting up could be dangerous.”

“It’d be even more dangerous to—” and Kylo stops. He looks down, then over Hux’s shoulder, avoiding eye contact. “Just… stay here. Please.”

“Fine,” Hux relents, despite the  _ maybe we shouldn’t put Kylo in more near-death situations _ part of his brain protesting loudly. His  _ maybe  _ we _ shouldn’t be put in more near-death situations _ instincts are becoming a bit more prominent.

Kylo nods and offers a genuine smile. “Keep me alive?”

Hux studies his face, finally reaches out and lays feather-light, gloved fingers against his scar. Then he leans in and kisses Kylo, slowly, affectionately. It’s the best assurance Hux can think of at the moment. When he pulls back he says, “Don’t die.”

Kylo offers another smile, and then he steps back. “I don’t have a map. You’re gonna need to talk me through this.”

Hux nods. “Your comms are working?”

“They should be. I’ll—” suddenly, there’s an immense creaking, and a crash. The sound of wings from the hallway. A groan that resounds through the station. Kylo and Hux lock eyes, share a quick, mutually terrified glance, and then everything steadies.

“I’m off, then,” Kylo says, voice even, and Hux nods. They linger, looking at each other, for a moment longer —  _ Just get through now. Be okay for now _ — and then Kylo turns, his stupid cloak flapping, and disappears into the darkness of the hallway.

Hux watches the doorway for a few heartbeats before turning back to the datascreen. Kylo is a tiny dot of heat in the grand blueprint of the station, dwarfed next to the massive heat signature in the lower half of the ring.

There’s an awkward silence for a minute or two, Hux giving the occasional, “Keep straight,” or “Left here,” and Kylo only grunting in response.

Then, out of nowhere, Kylo says, “Lovely weather, isn’t it?”

Hux jumps. God, this place is putting him on edge. “You are positively quotidian.”

“And you’re a pretentious asshole,” Kylo says happily.

“Hm,” says Hux. “Turn right.” Just as Kylo does, there’s another resounding creak, but it seems quieter, somehow. Hux’s eyes snap immediately to the giant heat signature —  _ space slugs, _ Kylo’s voice says in his head — which has… begun to  _ split. _ Well, only parts of it. It’s like there are shreds of it breaking off, moving quickly down the corridors, towards… “They’re coming for you.”

Kylo laughs. “Well that’s not ominous at all.”

Hux very much wants to punch him. “No, the… don’t turn here.” There’s something in the hallway to Kylo’s right, and while that would be the most direct route to the archives, Hux isn’t about to sacrifice him to whatever  _ that thing _ is.

There’s a moment of quiet, and then Kylo says, tone serious, “Really, though, what did you mean by that?”

Hux bites the inside of his cheek, trying to formulate a complete sentence. “I… That heat signature? The giant one?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s… shedding.” Hux sort of wants to hide in his greatcoat and maybe die. He should never be allowed to speak. Kylo snickers, and Hux decides he wants to suffocate him first. “There are smaller signatures coming off of it and… they’re going straight for you.”

Immediately, Kylo asks, “Only me?”

Hux scans over the map again. “Yes, as far as I can tell.”

“Good.” Kylo doesn’t say anything else, but.

Hux bites his lip and doesn’t mention it. The little heat signatures are spreading across the station, and Hux realizes it’s going to be very difficult to get Kylo to the archives without encountering at least a few. So, he decides, fuck it.

“Get your lightsaber ready,” Hux says quietly.

“What, you planning to surprise me?” Kylo asks with a small laugh, but the purr of his lightsaber sounds.

“In a sense.” Hux pauses. “Right here.”

“Wh—” There’s the sound of Kylo’s lightsaber cutting into something. “Hey, fuck you, Hux!”

“Later,” says Hux absently, smiling to himself.

Kylo snorts, then makes a weird, half-shriek noise, and his lightsaber sounds again.

“What are you fighting?” Hux asks, watching two smaller heat signatures encroach on Kylo’s.

“It’s  _ dark,” _ Kylo says, and the hum of his lightsaber dies. Hux can hear his footsteps as he walks, brisk. “I couldn’t see them, but they were  _ slimy.” _

Hux makes a face. “Hm. Keep going straight.” Kylo grunts in response, and they lapse into silence. Hux is a little concerned, but he hasn’t died yet, so Hux tunes him out and scans over the rest of the map quickly, only to stop when something catches his eye.

The giant heat signature in the lower wing has moved. Slowly, creepingly, it’s entered the upper ring, heading straight for Kylo. Hux watches with a horrified sort of entrancement as it moves. The frame of the station creaks and groans and cries.

It seems to be getting longer, somehow, growing out of itself and wrapping the station in its horrible, apparently slimy grip. Hux doesn’t even think to mention it until it’s right on Kylo and his brain screams,  _ Too late! _

“Kylo,” Hux says, very slowly, “there’s something to your left.”

Kylo’s breathing halts for a moment before he asks, “What?”

“The… the big heat blob. It’s…” Hux watches with morbid fascination as the giant heat shadow oozes along the corridors, growing ever closer to— 

“Oh Force,” breathes Kylo.

“What’s happening? Can you see it?” Hux asks, trying not to sound too worried.

“I—” Kylo’s voice is cut off by a stomach-churning  _ squelching _ and he shouts, “AH! FUCK!” and there’s the sound of his lightsaber buzzing to life.

“Ren, what is _going on?”_ Hux demands, his heart suddenly pounding. He grips the edge of the holoscreen. Unspoken but understood: _Are you okay?_ Hux’s eyes are glued to the screen in front of him, watching, useless, as Kylo is smothered into obscurity by the behemoth he’s apparently facing. Hux can _feel_ the blood draining from his face. “Kylo. Kylo?”  
Kylo’s lightsaber strikes flesh and there’s a horrible sizzling noise, and an inhuman scream, and then the drone of the saber dies and Hux can hear him running. Kylo Ren. Running. His head is spinning.

“Ren, what  _ was _ that?” Hux forces his voice to be steady. He stares at the screen in front of him, heart still thundering. Kylo’s little blob of heat, if only for those few seconds, had been  _ gone, _ been swallowed by the other  _ thing. _ Hux allows himself a moment to close his eyes, and then he looks back at the screen.

Kylo is leaving the giant in the dust, but he still hasn’t spoken a word to Hux. His heavy footsteps sound over the comm, and Hux clings to them, and to Kylo’s heavy breathing, for dear life. Eventually, Kylo slows, and Hux watches as he ducks behind another wall and stops.

“Ren?” Hux asks, voice smaller than he’d intended.

Kylo just grunts, and suddenly all of Hux’s affection and concern are thrown out the window.

“What in the stars was  _ that?” _ he snaps. He would shout, but he’s a little concerned about attracting his own heat blob.

Kylo mutters something unintelligible that Hux can _ not _ have heard right, because— 

_ “Worms?” _ What the  _ fuck? _

“Yes,” Kylo replies shortly, and Hux’s brain just. Stops. It takes a good few seconds for him to process what he just heard, and Kylo just keeps talking, but he’s not listening.

“Kylo, Kylo,” Hux says, interrupting whatever tirade he was too rattled to hear. “I’m sorry.  _ WORMS?” _

There’s a long pause, and then a sigh. “I don’t fucking know, Hux! It was a worm. I nearly got eaten by a worm. I don’t know what it’s doing here, or why it eats people, but I am not dying to a space worm.”

Hux snorts at that, but he’s still utterly out of it. “I can’t… Why did it have to be worms, Ren?”

“Why, you afraid of them?”

“No! Of course not! They’re worms!” Hux shakes his head. “Just… space worms. Of  _ course _ we’d run into man-eating space worms.”

“You’ve said ‘worms’ too many times in the past twenty seconds,” Kylo says. “Just stay put. They’re slow. I’m heading to the archives, and then we can get out of here.”

Hux glares down at the holoscreen and the heat blob — worm, apparently — now undulating sickeningly towards Kylo. He considers his own safety, then considers the very real possibility of losing Kylo to a worm. “Well, get moving. It’s heading towards you,” Hux tells him. “Also, I’m coming to find you.”

“What? No!” Kylo’s running again, but the indignance in his voice is very clear and almost comical. “I need you and your heat map!”

“Recall that I do, in fact, have a datapad,” Hux reminds him, already searching for a connection port. “If you die, I’m going to at least be there to witness it.”

“No, Hux, I need you to—” Kylo stops and Hux pauses momentarily, waiting. Kylo exhales, long and tired. “I need you to stay safe.”

Hux tightens his fingers around his datapad. “Ren — I… need you to be safe, too. And if not safe, at least in working order.”

A resigned sort of silence. Hux smiles to himself. “Fine,” Kylo mutters, “but just so you know, if you die, I’m never going on another one of these stupid missions again. I’ll tell Snoke it was your fault and mourn for about two hours before taking over the Order.”

“That almost sounds like mutiny,” Hux points out. “I shudder to think about the fate of the Order in your hands.” Hux hums as he finds a connection port, hooks up his datapad, and the thermal sensory program begins its transfer sequence.

“You’re a bad singer,” Kylo says, pettiness heavy in his voice.

“I control whether you live or die.”

“Noted. You have the voice of an angel. Oh, Hux, serenade me.”

“That would be more effectual if you hadn’t said it in a dead monotone.”

The program finishes its transfer with a soft chime, and Hux disconnects the pad. He does a few cursory checks to make sure it’s working, then says, “Everything’s set, so I’m starting out. I’ll keep you updated on the… worms.”

“Awesome. Hey, maybe if you sing to them, the worms will be so repulsed they’ll leave us alone.”

Hux sniffs disdainfully. “Kylo! There’s something around that corner!”

“Wait, really?” Kylo’s lightsaber jumps to life.

“No. Shut the fuck up.”

Kylo falls silent and Hux allows himself a smug snicker before stepping out of the bridge and into the dark hallway. It’s not much worse than the bridge itself, but somehow every stray sound seems so much louder now that he’s on his own and vulnerable. There’s something about being on the bridge of any ship, Hux thinks, that just feels so powerful, so untouchable. He also thinks that Kylo would laugh at him for that, so he doesn’t voice his thoughts.

Hux hesitates in the doorway for a heartbeat, waiting for  _ something, _ though he’s not sure what. The ship groans and jolts, and that’s sign enough for him. He steps carefully into the darkness, letting his datapad light the way. Down the hallway, there’s a flapping sound, and Hux watches cautiously as a mynock emerges swiftly from the darkness, flies past him overhead with a frantic whipping of wings, and disappears. There’s a bump from the shadows ahead.

“Well, that doesn’t bode well,” he murmurs.

“What,” Kylo scoffs, “attacked by a bat?”

“No,” Hux muses, shining his datapad down the corridor. “It was running from something.” A pause. “It’s being chased.”

Kylo’s quiet for a moment, and Hux doesn’t move. “Be careful,” Kylo says after a beat. There’s something in his voice that tugs at Hux’s chest. He closes his eyes.

“You too.”

They lapse into silence again as Hux stays in place and tracks Kylo on the datapad, well aware that he’s just avoiding going deeper into the station. Kylo’s getting closer to the archives, but there’s still a sizeable army of the worms slowly encroaching on him. Hux blows out a long breath.

“These worms are really getting to you, aren’t they?” Kylo asks smugly.

“I have an audio file of that sound you made when you ran into the big one,” Hux says. He doesn’t, because recording conversations is for people who  _ aren’t _ romantically involved, but it shuts Kylo up.

Hux finally decides he’s being an idiot and steps further into the darkness. After a few paces, the darkness grows so pressing that he can’t see past his map. He feels claustrophobic and uncomfortable and blanketed with a sort of cold.

“This place is horrible.”

“Yeah,” Kylo agrees. There’s a hum of his lightsaber and a wet plop. Hux grimaces. “Especially with all the worms.”

“Especially with all the worms,” Hux agrees. “Turn right.” He turns right as well, and Kylo grunts an affirmative.

“Do you even have a weapon? Like a blaster? Or, I don’t know, a pocket knife?” Kylo’s tone is mocking, but Hux knows why he’s asking.

“Worry about yourself, Ren,” Hux says. “I’m armed.”

Kylo huffs. “Sorry for not wanting you to die.”

“Aw, you’re sentimental.”

“You are too.”

“We’re ending this conversation. You’re almost there anyways.”

Kylo is quiet for a heartbeat. Hux continues along the corridor, watching Kylo’s heat signature as it nears the archive, listens to the buzz and whirl of his lightsaber. Kylo nears a corner, rounds it, and comes to the mouth of the archive. Hux takes another cautious step, listens to the station groan.

“I’m here,” Kylo murmurs. “How’re the worms looking?”

“Stars, shut up,” Hux replies, casting a useless but gratifying glare into the shadows around him. He checks the heat map, though. The area around the archives is full of signatures — a few feet away from Kylo lies a fading splotch of color, and a few feet beyond that,  another squirms. The archive itself is shockingly dark. There’s not even a ghost of life there, and it makes Hux suspicious.

“Well?” prompts Kylo.

“The archive  _ appears _ to be worm-free,” he says. He hesitates before adding, so, so softly, “But I’m not… sure. Be careful.”

Kylo snorts, and Hux hears something hiss and slide open. “Don’t worry, babe. It’s all—”

Quiet. A faint crackle, and then complete, suffocating silence.

It takes a moment to register; Hux keeps waiting for a cry or a curse or the sound of a lightsaber or even just Kylo’s breathing, but the comm is dead. Something’s wrong. And then it clicks. Something is  _ wrong. _

Hux’s mind goes blank for a second, his heart suddenly pounding. He feels like throwing up. Shit, when did he get this emotional?

His ears are fuzzy and he shuts his eyes, places a hand just beneath his ribs, and carefully steadies his breathing. His heart thuds in his chest, pulses through his entire body. He tries again, inhales, exhales, tries to remember where he is and think anything except for,  _ I lost him. _

And then his mind spits out,  _ Kylo. Archives. _ And Hux kicks himself into gear. He has to find him. He’s going to find him. He takes a step, checks the map. His heart doesn’t calm and his chest feels like an overfilled balloon, but he’s moving forward.

Out of the darkness ahead of him comes a faint squeaking, a quiet cry, and then a heavy crunch. Hux winces involuntarily, tucks away his datapad, and draws his blaster.

He advances cautiously, light tucked carefully against his weapon showing the way. After a few steps it reveals one of the worm things — and fuck, they’re  _ awful _ — seemingly in the process of slurping up the corpse of a mynock, crushed and mostly gone already. Hux watches for a moment in disgust before leveling his blaster and pulling the trigger. The worm hardly flinches and turns to look at him, half of the mynock still hanging out of its mouth.

Hux’s heart thuds and he pulls the trigger again, and again, and again, and again, and — it falls limp somewhere in there.

Hux lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, stepping forward and crouching to get a better look at the worm. It’s familiar in a far-off sense, probably something he learned about in training as a precaution, or something he’d read about on his own.  _ Space worms, _ Hux thinks to himself disdainfully. He doesn’t care much about identifying them anymore. They have Kylo. Space worms have his consort. Hux feels the balloon in his chest deflate a little bit, huffs a disbelieving chuckle.

The worm is bigger than he expected. At least three times as long as Hux is tall, and bloated gray. Hux’s nose crinkles unconsciously. Its hand-sized teeth are still lodged in the mynock’s spine. No eyes, no nose. Hux checks for ears but there’s nothing remarkable, and it’s riddled with blaster shots anyway. 

He stands —  _ wasting time _ — and sets off towards the archive.

It’s pretty much a straight shot down the main corridor, so Hux throws what little caution he has left to the wind and starts running, feet pounding, echoing loud through the station. It’s  _ not _ reassuring that all of the worms are converging on the archives, and if anything that makes Hux run faster.

He does slow down when he reaches the adjacent hallways and hears the slick, slimy squelching noises a good few hundred paces from where he’s standing. Hux sniffs and wishes for earplugs. He thanks the stars that he didn’t eat before this, because he’s two seconds away from dry-heaving.

Suddenly, something surges at him from the darkness. He fires blindly into the space ahead and his shots must hit something, because it falls limp over him, knocking him to the ground, breathless.

Hux shoves the wet, gray worm off of himself and shuffles backwards, shining his penlight into the hallway ahead, to no avail. It’s swallowed by the shadows after a few feet, but there don’t appear to be any worms in the immediate future, so that’s… nice.

Slowly, Hux pulls himself to his feet and nudges the worm. It doesn’t move.

_ Kylo, _ he reminds himself, and steps carefully over the corpse. He doesn’t know exactly what he plans to accomplish — if the noise is any indication, that’s  _ way _ more worms than he could feasibly take on — but he keeps onward. He has to do  _ something. _

It’s been far too long to possibly find Kylo alive, some part of him thinks. It’s been  _ minutes. _ How many heartbeats is that? How many chances to kill?  _ Don’t do that. _ He doesn’t need to be tearing himself apart right now. He just has to know where Kylo is.

The noises reach a crescendo and Hux presses himself to the wall, inching along it towards the next opening. He stops just before the intersection of the next hallway and steels himself to glance around the corner, where the sounds seem to pick up.

Deep breath. For Kylo. Stars, Hux is going to kill him.

A hand on the wall, for support, and— 

“H—?” the comms click feebly to life, crackling over Kylo’s words.

Hux’s heart  _ stops _ for a moment. He freezes, inches from the worm-filled abyss. “Ren?” he half-gasps, without even the decency to feel embarrassed.

Kylo is quiet for a second, and there’s only the sound of his labored breathing. Then, “Status update: I am not full of worms.” It’s half whispered, half-breathed, and Hux thinks,  _ I’m going to kill him. I am going to absolutely  _ murder _ him. _

His heart feels stupidly, gladly, thankfully full.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Thank—” he cuts himself off before he starts rambling and gives Kylo more things to use against him. “Meet me back at the ship. We need to leave  _ now.” _

“Right,” Kylo agrees. “The ship. Right.”

Hux hesitates before starting down the hallway. “You don’t know where you are, do you?”

“Absolutely no fucking clue.”

Hux sighs something like a shaky laugh. “Of course.” He starts back down the hallway, trying to pinpoint Kylo’s heat signature in the mass of worms. Eventually he cross references a log of Kylo’s biorhythms with the thermal map (he loses Kylo a lot, okay? It’s not that creepy) and finds him tucked in a corner of the corridor opposite himself.

“Alright, not bad,” Hux mutters. “Remember how the station is a ring structure? You’re on the other half, just opposite me. You just have to turn right coming out of that alcove and we should end up at the same place.”

Kylo grunts an affirmative and Hux waits to make sure he’s headed in the right direction before starting to run. The worms have begun to disperse and move outwards, towards the two of them. Hux, personally, does not want  _ any _ part of whatever slimy worm orgy they’ve got going on.

As he approaches the bridge, he risks a glance inside and pauses. Everything is awash with Dathomir’s red glow, reflecting off of every surface. Just below the viewport, a small worm writhes. His stomach churns and the hair on his neck rises. Hux stares for a moment longer before continuing to the hangar.

He and Kylo reach the hallway outside the hangar at the same time. It’s cheesy and dumb, but Hux freezes when he sees him. It’s something about the combination of Kylo’s hair being a fucking mess, of the grime that’s coating him and dripping off of his hands still, and of the reassurance that really,  _ really, _ Kylo is  _ alive. _

Hux eventually gets his legs back under control and meets Kylo at the entrance to the hangar.

“You’re okay,” he says quietly, with wonder that really should have been spent on adrenaline and exasperation by now.

Kylo puts a slimy hand on Hux’s shoulder — oh no — and presses a gentle kiss to Hux’s forehead. “Just barely.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

Kylo chuckles and turns towards the hangar. “There we go. I was starting to wonder if you were the real Hux.”

Hux checks him good-naturedly with a shoulder as he starts towards the ship.

They make it about halfway across when there’s a deafening creak, and then a  _ slam, _ and a roar. They turn and see the massive, gaping mouth of a severely overgrown worm baring its teeth and throat at them through the entrance to the hangar.

They share a glance, and they run.  _ Slam. _

There’s a mynock sniffing at the landing gear as Hux nears, but it startles off into the dark as he passes, careening straight into the cockpit to initialize takeoff protocol. The landing ramp hisses closed and a moment later, Kylo joins him at the controls.  _ Slam. Crack. _

Hux curses the stupid shuttle with its trundling boosters and slow-working computers.  _ Slam. _

Finally, finally, the ship chirps an affirmative on liftoff. Hux slides into the pilot’s seat and engages the boosters. Behind them, there’s the scream of metal bending, shrill and brutal. Kylo twists around and tenses.

“The worm—”

“I don’t want to know,” Hux interrupts, and then they’re out of the hangar, zipping away from that starsforsaken station and the fucking… worms.

They fly for a few minutes in tense silence, and it’s not until they make the jump to hyperdrive that Hux lets himself release the breath he’s been holding since he sat down. He feels like sinking onto the floor, but he still has some vaguely salvageable dignity and he won’t let the worms steal that from him.

Kylo steps forward and rests his elbows on the back of Hux’s chair, fingertips grazing his collarbones. He drops a kiss to Hux’s hair and Hux closes his eyes.

They’re quiet, watching the stars fly by in stripes, reality temporarily shut out by the peaceful loneliness of stretching the universe to your whims. Hux knows that’s not how it really works, but he likes the thought of being able to pause everything for just a moment.

“I thought you’d died,” Hux murmurs.

“Really?”

“No.” Hux pauses. “Part of me did. Part of me was too…” He swallows and winces. “Part of me was too afraid to think about it at all.”

Kylo doesn’t reply.

“I thought I’d lost you on Starkiller, too,” Hux confesses. He kind of hates that he’s doing all of this right now. At least he doesn’t have to look Kylo in the eye. “Snoke told me to go get you and I…”

Gently, Kylo turns Hux’s chair around to face him. Damn it. Kylo takes Hux’s hands in his own and pulls him up to stand, then tugs him into a hug. An honest-to-god hug. Hux doesn’t quite realize what’s happening for a moment, and then it takes him another second to realize that he’s supposed to be holding Kylo, too.

“I’m here,” Kylo says once Hux has rested his hands on his lower back. Hux leans his forehead against Kylo’s shoulder, looking down. “I’m here. It’s gonna take a lot more than a worm to take me down.” His tone is light, but Hux knows he’s serious.

“I hate you,” Hux says.

“I know.”

“I wish the worm had gotten you.” His voice hitches.

“I know.”  _ Stop saying that. _

“I’m sorry.” He shouldn’t be crying over this. He shouldn’t be crying at all, especially not where Kylo can see him. “I’m sorry.”

Kylo rubs his back and Hux feels so stupid and so small and — fuck. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry.” Hux scrubs at his eyes with one hand, turning away from Kylo.

“It’s okay.”

They pause and Hux rests his head back on Kylo’s shoulder, wraps his arms back around him and lets himself feel… safe.

It’s okay.

They’re okay.

Hux finally lifts his head to look at Kylo. He meets his eyes and Kylo offers a small smile.

“I won’t say anything to anyone,” Kylo promises cheekily. “Not even Phasma.”

“You know, I was going to say something meaningful,” Hux says.

“I thought so. Figured I had better derail that before you could get started.” Kylo kisses him quickly and Hux mumbles something about feeding him to the worms. Kylo flicks his forehead.

Hux smiles, then sobers. He closes his eyes. “Just…” Kylo nods and rests his cheek against Hux’s hair. Quiet comfort.

“Thank you.”

Kylo hums. They stay until the ship drops out of hyperdrive, holding each other for all the things they never say and all the things they never could.

**Author's Note:**

> quick note: if you can think of better tags i'm begging you Please tell me i don't even know what to do with this thing
> 
> anyway thank you for reading!! i hope you enjoyed this & aren't emotionally scarred by these goddamn worms (as i was)


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